The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
|
|
Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange that has grown rapidly in recent years to one of the largest, is considering partnerships with U.S. firms to gain a foothold in America, encouraged by the incoming Trump administration's likely pro-crypto stance.
Some of the largest crypto exchanges such as Binance, ByBit, OKX and Bitget are prohibited from serving U.S. citizens. Binance.US, the American arm of the largest exchange, has been all but squeezed out as part of a bruising $4.3 billion settlement between its parent company and U.S. authorities. In early 2022, Bitget, which has daily trading volume of around $8 billion, considered starting the process of acquiring U.S. state licenses, said the exchange’s CEO, Gracy Chen. But after the collapse of FTX, the climate didn’t look favorable, not to mention the “ridiculously high” legal costs, combined with the prospect of competing directly with Coinbase, Chen added.
Even with the regulatory clarity for crypto in the U.S. that Trump might bring as president, a tangle of state-based licenses and various federal authorities await new entrants. That said, Bitget has experience forging mutually beneficial relationships: A recent partnership with U.K. trading firm Archax enabled Bitget to become compliant with British financial promotions rules.
“We are revisiting a U.S. strategy, although we have not decided on anything yet,” Chen said in an interview. “If we had a local partner who has many of those licenses already, then we could do a joint venture, for example. So we don’t need to go through all the applications. We might take that approach, but it’s not decided yet.” |
|
|
Welcome to XION, the first walletless layer-one blockchain purpose-built for consumer adoption — no wallets, no keys, no hassle — just innovation. With XION, developers can build, launch, and scale products that are ready for the masses, thanks to novel Chain Abstraction infrastructure. All it takes to join the crypto revolution? An email. Ready to take the leap? Explore XION today at xion.burnt.com |
|
|
Saylor Buys $2.1 Billion More |
Bitcoin Development Company MicroStrategy (MSTR) added to its mammoth bitcoin (BTC) holdings last week with the purchase of another 21,550 tokens.
The buys were made over the week ended Dec. 8 and the firm paid an average price of $98,783 each, totaling $2.1 billion, according to a Monday regulatory filing. It funded the acquisition by selling roughly $2.13 billion shares during the same period. The company now has an additional $9.19 billion remaining from its previously existing $21 billion at-the-market (ATM) share sales facility. The latest buying spree brought the firm's BTC holdings to 423,650, or nearly $42 billion worth at current prices. Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy now holds more than 2% of the 21 million bitcoin that can ever exist.
The purchases took place and perhaps contributed to bitcoin's price action as the crypto crossed above $100,000 last week for the first time in its history with significant U.S. investor activity bidding spot prices higher. Alongside, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs also saw massive inflows raking in $2.73 billion in fresh funds last week, data compiled by Farside Investors showed. |
|
|
Bitcoin’s Pumping. Memes Are Minting Millionaires. The bear market’s snoozing, and the bull run is here.
Consensus Hong Kong is where you level up, make moves and position yourself to win. Top global leaders will be there. Will you?
Prices rise Dec. 13 at 10 a.m. ET/ 11 p.m. HKT—save $700 and get an extra 15% off with code NODE15. Don’t miss out. Register today. |
|
|
Biggest Ever Bitcoin Inscription |
Bitcoin inscriptions project OrdinalsBot has minted what it says is the largest file ever on the oldest and most valuable blockchain: the last in a collection of 1,500 "Pizza Ninjas."
It's part of a phenomenon in the Bitcoin development community known as "four meggers," which are files that take up an entire block on the network. They are called four meggers because they are almost 4 megabytes (MB) big (the maximum size of each block of transactions on Bitcoin). Ordinals collectors consider them valuable due to their visibility on the blockchain.
"There's more than just bragging rights behind wanting to have the largest file on Bitcoin," said Toby Lewis, co-founder of OrdinalsBot. "Four meggers will be on the Bitcoin blockchain forever and they already hold significant market value."
Bitcoin inscriptions, similar to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum, were made possible by the Ordinals protocol. It allows data to be "inscribed" onto individual satoshis, or "sats" (the smallest unit of BTC at 1/100,000,000 of a full bitcoin), making each one unique and potentially valuable.
To build on MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor's analogy of Bitcoin as real estate in a cyber Manhattan, minting a four-megger is the equivalent of buying an entire skyscraper rather than a single office or apartment. |
El Salvador Amends Legal Tender Law |
El Salvador may roll back a small aspect of its Bitcoin law as part of a new deal with the International Monetary Fund. The Latin American country may no longer require Salvadorean merchants to accept bitcoin (BTC) as a means of payment across the nation, instead making bitcoin acceptance voluntary, according to a new report from the Financial Times.
The legal modification is part of the conditions imposed by the IMF for El Salvador to gain access to a $1.3 billion loan program, the report said. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are also expected to lend an extra $1 billion each to the nation, for a total of $3.3 billion. The agreement is projected to be reached within the next two or three weeks.
El Salvador shook the world when it made bitcoin legal tender in 2021, granting the top cryptocurrency the same regulatory status as the nation’s official currency, the U.S. dollar. At the same time the country’s president, Nayib Bukele, has pursued the establishment of a bitcoin Treasury, the holding of which has neared $600 million at bitcoin's current price of roughly $100,000.
The IMF, however, has criticized the approach and issued various warnings over the years that El Salvador’s bitcoin strategy could imperil the nation’s financial stability.
The law change is unlikely to significantly impact bitcoin adoption across the country, which has been relatively poor. The Central American University, Bukele’s alma mater, found in January that 88% of surveyed Salvadorans hadn’t used Bitcoin in 2023.
Modifications to the bitcoin law aren’t the only condition imposed by the IMF. The Salvadoran government will also need to commit — via spending cuts and tax increases — to reducing its budget deficit to 3.5% of GDP over three years, the report said. Increased reserves and the passing of an anti-corruption law will also be necessary, according to the report.
Beyond the Bitcoin law, El Salvador’s National Commission of Digital Assets (CNAD) has already developed a comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto. At press time, the agency had not responded to a request for comment on the potential bitcoin law modification.
|
The Takeaway: The Myth of Easy Meme Money |
By Azeem Khan
Memecoins, whether people want to accept it or not, have become big business. Without delving into statistics, anyone immersed in the crypto space this year can confirm that memecoins have dominated conversations. Critics often argue that memecoins are just a rehash of Jordan Belfort’s “Wolf of Wall Street” era — a world of unregulated securities and insider trading. This time, however, the penny stocks have been replaced by on-chain memes financialized in ways that make it seem like anyone can create and profit from them.
Yet, this perception of memecoins as a quick, easy way to win a digital lottery and become an overnight millionaire is deeply flawed. While they may be marketed as accessible and egalitarian, the reality is far more complex. Memecoins thrive not only on mechanics but also on culture. They tap into internet humor, FOMO, and the gamified thrill of financial speculation — making them as much about community as profit.
Successfully launching a memecoin requires significant capital, a methodical approach, and often, insider connections. The truth is, many of these projects, which present themselves as grassroots or community-driven, are nothing more than anonymous pyramid schemes in disguise. If people understood the actual mechanics behind their success, they’d realize how inaccessible and orchestrated this supposedly “easy” path truly is. While not all memecoins are scams in disguise, it’s crucial to recognize the risks and realities involved, as this is an ecosystem where real money is at stake.
While memecoins are often perceived as simple and accessible, their success is anything but accidental. Behind every viral token lies a calculated process involving key players, strategic funding, and carefully timed launches. This is where the business of memecoins begins to resemble a finely tuned machine, one that depends on a blend of market psychology, tokenomics, and influential endorsements to create momentum.
If that still sounds too conspiratorial, let’s walk through the steps required to successfully launch a memecoin. Then you can decide for yourselves.
First, you need a meme idea with the potential to generate real buzz. While bringing on an influencer with a big brand might seem like a shortcut, history shows it’s rarely a guaranteed strategy. For instance, the recent Hailey Welch token faced massive scrutiny on crypto Twitter for allegedly being a "rug pull". Whether these accusations hold true remains to be seen, but the controversy alone casts a shadow over the future of celebrity-endorsed memecoins.
After you’ve got the meme idea, it’s time to set the mission and vision. This is where the most critical work begins. You need to develop your tokenomics and outline them in a litepaper to share with initial investors. This raises essential questions: Which blockchain will you launch on? What will the total token supply be? How soon after the Token Generation Event (TGE) will tokens enter circulation? How will community fund allocations reward early supporters for belief propagation and social mining? What portion will go to private presales, public allocations, team allocations, and treasury reserves? How will the token be priced, and what vesting schedules will be implemented for everyone involved? If this already seems complex, understand—this is just the beginning. Understanding these mechanics is crucial, as they reveal how the deck is often stacked in favor of insiders, leaving naive investors holding the bag when hype fizzles out.
Why does all this matter? Well, if memecoins are a business like we’ve agreed to, then it will take initial capital investment to turn the idea into more money. And if you want to launch a billion dollar enterprise when it comes to a memecoin, or anything for that matter, it will take some serious initial investment. |
|
|
|
